How to Write a Great Tech Résumé

A good resume is important

You may have excellent technical skills, but unless you’re armed with a well-crafted résumé you’re unlikely to get your foot through the door. Your résumé is your first impression and we would like to share the following tips to create an amazing tech résumé.

Optimise for keywords

Keywords are not just limited to blog articles. They should be used in your résumé when applying for jobs. Recruiters and HR teams receive hundreds of résumés daily for each position and don’t have the time to read them all. Instead, they use a software system that looks for certain keywords in each résumé and pulls matches to the top.

Which keywords to use? Well that depends on the role. Start by looking at the job description and picking out keywords that best fit the position. If you’re applying for several jobs a day, slightly tweaking your résumé to be optimised for each role may seem like a great effort, but it’s what you need to do in order to get noticed.

Match your résumé with your social media profiles

LinkedIn is an invaluable resource in making connections within your field and finding well paid jobs. In our own experience of short-listing individuals for positions, the amount of candidates who have social profiles that do not match their résumé in terms of dates, title positions and responsibilities is surprisingly high.

For the more advanced positions in IT, don’t be surprised when recruiters Google your name to see what comes up. As well as making sure your social media profiles align with your résumé, consider that some of your digital footprint may harm your chances of landing the role.

Quality writing still matters in 2017

Long winded paragraphs that look like uninteresting and are a bore to read will say a lot about you as a person. Keep sentences short, sweet and to the point, mix them with bullet points to get the best results. Your résumé should tell the employer as much information about you in as few words as possible.

Action verbs should be used to replaced generic and uninspiring words such as responsible or participated. Instead opt for words such as developed, managed and controlled.

How to write your previous work history

While holding a degree and relevant certifications for a particular role is valued, nothing is prized higher than experience. This section should be achievement focused based on how you helped businesses in the past – not just your job duties.

For example, if you’re applying for a web developer role, you should mention a time where you created a website component that made the checkout process easier and increased sales by 15%. Relate the achievement to helping the company’s goals and ensure to keep it concise with no waffle.

This type of writing not only reads better but creates a subconscious image of what type of employee you will be. This type of writing style is much more powerful than generic statement like –“My duties including managing the servers and ensuring SLA were met” …yawn.

Create a technical table

We don’t need to tell you that the tech industry advances every year, and what is relevant today may not be tomorrow. What we do need to tell you is this: ensure you have a technical table on your résumé. The table should include the latest technologies you have worked with, the versions, and how many months or years you spent working with each technology.

If any roles were highly technical, list down all versions you used during your time there.

Creating a detailed technical table ensures that recruiters spend time reading your résumé, instead of giving it a quick one second glance and tossing it away. The table is the first place most recruiters look and if you tick the boxes they are looking for, you should expect a call.

How long should a tech résumé be?

If it’s longer than 5 pages you’re doing it wrong. In the last year we found the following structure to yield the best results for our candidates:

Page 3 – Career history – your latest jobs should be on this page. List no more than two job roles per page.

Page 4 – Career history continued – work roles performed in the past 5- 9 years.

Page 5 – Career history continued – work roles performed 10 years ago or more and summarised if needed

To get the best tech jobs you have to stand out. The key to a great tech résumé is to have it optimised for keywords, make it easily readable without being too long and listing relevant qualifications and experience.

The time has passed where you could send a stock résumé to several employers and expect to land a few interviews. Each résumé you send needs to be tweaked and adjusted to get it to the top of the pile.

Follow these simple yet highly effective tips to land the job of your dreams. If you would like your résumé checked over or would like to view our sample résumé – contact us today.